


Dark Stallion

by auri_mynonys



Series: The Usurper King [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Banter, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Forced Marriage, Mildly Dubious Consent, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Riding, Rough Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auri_mynonys/pseuds/auri_mynonys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grima is the Usurper King of Rohan, and husband to reluctant Eowyn. When he returns after court one day infuriated and looking for an escape, things take a turn for the surprisingly tender.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Stallion

**Author's Note:**

> Dubious consent listed because Eowyn is in a situation where she might conceivably be in danger if she refuses. She gives consent to sex fully and willingly, but the marriage she's in is a forced one, and her situation is very lonely - so while she gives consent, it's under relatively dire circumstances.

She thinks when he throws open the door that he’s going to make her bleed.

She doesn’t mind. She has given him permission a hundred times – a thing she swore she would never do. But after the first concession she has made more, lost count of all the times she has bent to his will. He says the same of her, and she believes him. They are always bending to each other, shouting and conceding, like thunder and lightning.

It is her fault that this started. The first time she bit him it alarmed him, but it woke something in him too; and seeing him come to life under her teeth, she tore him open and made him bleed, made him scream. She ripped her wrath from his flesh and called it payment for the ills the universe inflicted upon her; but she let him have his pleasure too, burying him in the depths of her and riding him until he broke beneath her with a howl.

Tonight, it will be her turn.

He does not tell her what has set him off. For once, she knows it is not her. She has not seen him all day – also unusual – for court has usurped his attention and kept him locked away for hours. Servants have rushed past, whispering in low voices; but none will tell Queen Éowyn what it is that is happening.

Whatever it is, it has enraged Gríma like never before. His eyes are blades drawn from beneath an icy lake, cold and cutting and doubly deadly. She flinches back like a maiden taken unawares, her mouth falling open. Three easy strides and he is across the room to her, casting aside his cloak like it’s nothing and catching her around the waist. She is so alarmed she draws back for a moment, pressing him back with her palms flat against his chest; and to his credit, he stops, lets go, takes a few steps back.

“Some days I would give anything not to be king,” he says, fingers curling into fists.

Éowyn is wary still, afraid of the tension in his fists and the curl of his lips. “A little late for regret, is it not?” she says. It is bad form to prod the tiger, a dangerous game. She is taking her life in her hands. But she can’t resist the quip.

Fortunately, he only smiles a little, a quick upward turn of his mouth that disappears almost as soon as she sees it. “I did not ask to be king. I asked for security, and you.”

Éowyn lifts her chin, wraps her arms around herself. “You might perhaps have had both, without Saruman’s help.”

“I might also be dead.” He takes a small step towards her, and stops at once when she stiffens. “And whatever the means, I have the most important of the two now.”

Éowyn frowns. “Security?”

He smiles. It stays this time. “You.”

She flushes. “You might have had me under better circumstances.”

He raises his eyes to the rafters, a plea for patience. “So you would have me believe.”

“Is it not what I feel and believe that matters?” she asks. The banter relaxes her. It is easy and familiar, a simple build-up to thing she craves, but does not wish to crave. Two years ago she might have laughed to hear anyone say that she would willingly bed the Wormtongue; but the years have passed by swiftly, and he is all she has. “It is I, after all, who give consent as to who has me and who does not, and not your wizard.”

Gríma shrugs, conceding the point. His eyes are following her, tracing her every move with a hunger that once alarmed her. When she tilts her head, his gaze leaps to follow the curve of her neck, tracing the long, wild lines of her pale golden hair as it falls over her shoulder. She shifts under his scrutiny and moves to sit on the bed, cross-legged. She has no need for courtly mannerisms here. “Rumor has it you were in a rage today,” she says.

“Does it?” Gríma says, his voice a low, silken thrum that makes her swallow, hard, and scramble to hide her face behind the curtain of her hair. “Whatever would make you think such a thing?”

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Éowyn replies, pursing her lips. “It couldn’t be the manner in which you slammed the door; nor, I suppose, would it be the way you’ve continued to glare at every object in this room as if it has personally offended you, myself included.”

He smirks, and Éowyn bites her lip. She has come to know him so well, too well, she supposes; he will make a quip, and reach out to her, and gentle her until she succumbs – or, more likely, he will make a quip and be upon her, teeth and tongue and hands all over.

She could, she supposes, refuse him; but then, why would she bother? There is only one escape for her now, and it is through him. He will offer her the sweet nectar of forgetting, and where once she would reject his lies, she will now gladly swallow them whole.

He comes closer, taking slow, purposeful steps. “It is not you who offends me,” he said. “Everything else in the world offends me, but never you.”

“Everything?” Éowyn asks, raising a brow. “It is a difficult life you lead, my liege, to be so affronted by all of creation.”

He smiles, predatorial, dangerous. “There are degrees of affront,” he says. “Some things offend me more than others.” He looms in front of her, reaching out with long, pale fingers to touch the neckline of her dress. “The courtiers and ambassadors offend me to a degree I cannot properly put into words. They are arrogant and greedy; they have no tact and no sense of proper politics; and if I were not there to control them, every last one of them would have killed each other by now.”

Éowyn follows his fingers, breath starting to catch as they dance along the ribbon lining her bodice. “You might perhaps like them better if so many of them weren’t orcs,” she suggests.

He bites down on another smile. “A king cannot choose the ambassadors men send him,” he replies. “And that offends me too.”

His fingers are lingering on her dress, tracing the lacing of her gown downward, pausing between the swell of her breasts. Éowyn catches her lower lip with her teeth and inches away, just a little, just enough to be annoying. Gríma’s eyes narrow and leap up to hers again. His impatience is showing. She would be wiser not to goad him further, but then, he has always loved her defiance. And if she is honest, if she looks into the darkest parts of her soul, this is her favorite game – toying with the snake until his rage compels him to strike back.

“What seems to offend you most, my lord, is choice,” Éowyn says, laying back on the bed and propping herself up on her elbows. She quirks a brow at him, daring him to follow her. “You would have men do exactly as you bade them, with minimal thought and without regard to what they personally might need or wish for. You would create the world to be your chessboard, and all its little people pawns for you to move about at will.”

His eyes are locked on hers, so very bright and blue in the shifting light of the candles. “Perhaps you’re right,” he murmurs, tongue slipping out to run over his lips, to taste the air for her. “And then again, perhaps not. If that were the case, I should find you the greatest offense of all.”

She laughs. “Don’t you?”

“No.” He reaches up and begins to undo the buttons of his tunic, still staring unblinking into her face. “A constant frustration, perhaps – but never an offense.”

Éowyn plays at sulking. “And now it is I who am offended,” she says. “For I certainly never intended to bring you any joy.”

“And that, sweet Éowyn, is the very thing that makes you delightful.” He shrugs off the tunic and lets it flutter to the floor, left only in breeches and boots. He is not a beautiful man, not in body or in face; but his is the body Éowyn knows best. There is something in the set of his shoulders that speaks of restraint, of tense patience – counting the seconds until he will pounce.

He sits on the bed, not quite beside her but not far from her either, and begins to unlace his boots, slowly, deliberately. “I expected a more vehement protestation,” he says, glancing at her with a smirk. “Yet I receive only silence. Might I infer that you’re losing your spark, my lady? Or are you simply distracted?”

She could hurt him easily, if she wanted – if she takes the opening he left for her – but the truth is, she _is_ distracted: distracted by the very thought of him, by the slow and languid movements of his fingers as the knot on his left boot slowly comes undone. “What is there for me to say, my king?” she says. At the sound of his title his eyes light with pleasure, heat creeping into his cheeks. Oh, he does so love power, loves having it, loves her mocking deference to it, loves knowing she will never really bend to it. “I will certainly never cease to frustrate and annoy you at every opportunity, so if you’d hoped to cow me into compliance by your remark, then it was poorly played.”

He kicks off his boot, still smiling, and moves to the other. “Oh, that was never my intent,” he says. “You comply so prettily with my will already; but what joy is there in it without the fight?”

Éowyn laughs. Once the remark would have made her angry. She would have flown at him with curled fists, screaming and shouting that his will would never rule her; but the game they play is different now, subtler, much-changed. She is his sometimes, compliant and willing in his arms; but on other nights, she belongs to no one but herself – and if he means to have her, he will have to tame her first.

Tonight, she has grown eager as she watches him; tonight, she thinks, she will not give him much fight. He has been fighting all day long. Though she is sure he saved some of his energy for her and her alone, she thinks it would be cruel to push him.

Still, a little tease can hardly hurt. “If you mean to make me angry, highness, you shall have to try harder than that,” she says, and turns away from him, clambering to her knees, stretching languidly. “I meant to go for a ride tonight,” she adds, casually, as if she doesn’t know already that he has no intention of letting her go anywhere. “I’m sure you need your rest for the coming day; I’ll leave you, if it please you.”

The other boot falls to the floor with an angry sound, louder than the first, slapping the stone as if it were her cheek. “It does not,” he says; and now it is he who is angered, whose fury echoes in his voice. “You had the entirety of the day to do as you wished, and you choose  _now_  to go riding?”

It is so easy to infuriate him when he is already irritated. She bites her lip to swallow a smile, and casts him a coy look. “Sunset rides are my favorite, my lord.”

“Are they indeed,” he growls, rising and circling to stand in front of her, where it will be harder for her to ease past him. “I should think my queen would know the laws of my house. No one is allowed to leave the city past nightfall.”

She sinks down onto the bed again, pouting. “Is it past nightfall already?” she says, toying with her hair. “Surely you can make an exception for the woman you call your wife?”

“There are no exceptions,” Gríma says, his voice shaking with his effort to control it. “For you least of all.”

Éowyn’s pout deepens. “Am I to infer that my lord husband does not trust me?”

“You are to infer that I wish to keep you safe,” he says, climbing back onto the bed and glowering. “If you wish to take from that a lack of trust, that is your business.”

“So angry,” Éowyn says, a mock-frown darkening her features. “Have I said something to offend you?”

Gríma casts her a long-suffering look. “The day was long,” he says, “And the company dismal.”

She smiles, an impish little smile that will light his blood on fire. “Perhaps  _you_  are in need of a hard ride, my lord.”

It is delightful how he nearly chokes on his breath, how every inch of him goes rigid and eager at the words. He is wanting for her more badly than she had imagined. “Perhaps I am,” he agrees, his eyes burning bright with meaning.

Éowyn pretends not to notice. “Then you may come with me,” she says, starting to bound out of bed. “Surely a king may break his own rules – ”

He has her around the waist before she can even think of escaping. He tugs her hard against him, sliding his other arm around her and pinning her in place. “If you thought to ride a horse, sweet Éowyn, you will have to think again,” he purrs, his breath hot against her neck. Her skin prickles and turns to gooseflesh at the sensation, her breath catching in her throat. “You shall have to settle for me instead.”

He nips at her ear, teasing the tender flesh with his tongue, and her wanting, a dull ache prior to this, easily manageable and easier still to ignore, flares painfully to life. She squirms in his grip, swallowing a moan, and manages, “Would you play the dark stallion, my lord, and have me ride you into oblivion?”

Gríma smiles fiercely against her neck and sucks at her skin, toying with the ribbon that closes her gown. “I  _am_  a stallion, princess; not playing at one.”

She laughs then, laughs at the long disused title, and at his game, and at her own need for him, the need she has been trying to forcefully push aside all night. She had expected an attack, but this – this is a pleasant surprise, almost sweet in its playfulness. She turns in his arms and straddles him eagerly, watching as his eyes widen just so and his lips part a little, just enough to show his tongue. “They say the Rohirrim are the lords of all horses,” she says, “And that we may bend the wildest of their number to our will. Dare I believe that my king – blackest and wildest of all stallions – will bend to mine?”

He smiles, pressing a kiss to her fingers. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it, lovely?” he murmurs, staring boldly into her eyes; and then his lips are pressed to hers, and Éowyn knows the fight is over, and he has already won.

He devolves from poised politician to wild animal in mere moments, snarling into her mouth as he deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping between her lips and teasing. Éowyn whimpers – a tiny sound, so small she deems it at first impossible to hear – but Gríma is humming with the feel of her, the sounds and smells of her, and that single sound breaks every last barrier. He catches hold of her hair and pulls, yanking her head back. Her lips leave his with a wet sound, and he moves to kiss her now-exposed throat, leaving bruising kisses along her pale, pristine skin.

“Don’t – ” she gasps, trying to escape the marks he means to leave; but his hand is firm around her hair, and his opposing arm tight around her waist. He growls in turn and leaves another mark, a bite this time, sure to bruise in pretty purple lines.

He lets go of her hair and lowers his mouth to her collar bone, following its line with his lips. He pauses to smirk up at her, trembling on his lap, and murmurs, “If this is your idea of gentling, pet, then you are no Horse Lord at all.”

Oh, he is insolent. She would love to punish him for it, to wipe that delicious little smirk off his face. She wrenches free of his grip and catches his shoulders, sending him tumbling backwards onto the bed and pinning him beneath her. Grinning, she bends over him, on all fours now, legs on either side of him. She watches his eyes follow the descent of her lips, until she hangs just above him, nearly brushing his mouth with hers. “You would not be so bold had I a whip,” she whispers.

He bares his teeth, his breath catching in the tiniest of longing gasps. “I’d let you fetch one if I thought you would return,” he says, gripping her thighs with his hands. “But I know you, sweet warrior; and you will not come back.”

She bends and presses her mouth to his ear, smirking as she feels him arch and go rigid beneath her. “And miss my ride, my lord?” she says. “How could I? Did I not tell you it’s my favorite?”

He hisses and arches again, desperately grinding his hips against hers. “You certainly take your time about it, then, for one who seems so eager,” he growls, teeth clenched.

She smirks. “Savor it, highness,” she says, her voice husky and low. “These joys are fleeting, and the world outside so cruel and cold.”

She lowers her mouth to his, gently sucking at his lower lip, and smiles when he moans, eyes fluttering open to stare into hers. He shudders and bucks against her, as if he is already inside her – or imagining he is. “ _You_  are cruel,” he gasps; “Far crueler than I could ever deem to be. Grant a weary king the only thing that might bring him solace…”

She settles her hips against his, rotating in a small, slow circle. Gríma moans again, this time digging his fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs. His breath is coming in uneven gasps now, frantic and eager. Éowyn cannot recall the last time she has seen him so out of control from so light a touch. She could grant him mercy, she supposes; but what would be the fun in that? She grins and bends to kiss him again, a slow, wet kiss that sends him writhing. “The horse, my lord, does not dictate the manner, speed, or timing of the ride,” she whispers, her breath ghosting over his lips. “That is  _my_  decision, and mine alone.”

Now it is her turn to draw a line down his throat. She trails her tongue from his jaw to his collar bone, pausing briefly to suck and leave a bruise. Gríma twitches, panting broken for a moment with a small cry. “Éowyn – ” he begs, his fingers digging into her back; and she knows he is truly gone now, that every vestige of the usurper king has fled. Now he is a man, a man who needs her, a man who will beg and plead and moan until she grants him what he so desires.

She smiles and sinks lower, pausing to lick at and bite a nipple. Gríma hisses, moans, clutches her the tighter. His hand is in her hair, tugging, trying to bring her back to him, to his mouth; but Éowyn has other plans. Her tongue draws another line, longer and slower, wandering from his chest to his stomach, and a little lower, teasing along the line of his breeches while her fingers capture and pull at the laces.

At this last gesture Gríma moans again, louder than any previous cry, and releases her hair just long enough to let her free him of the garment. “ _Please,_ ” he says; and then, when the laces come free and Éowyn sits up to pull the breeches off, he curses in a long string, kicking them free when Éowyn goes too slow for him.

“Shhh,” Éowyn soothes, clambering back on top of him. “Such an impatient steed. If ever I meant to ride a horse so anxious, I would leave him in the stables until he was calm again.”

“Don’t you  _dare,”_  Gríma snarls, catching the laces of her dress and tugging violently. “Don’t think I won’t pursue you. I will. I will chase you down and take you wherever you fall.”

Éowyn squeaks as he grabs the hem of her dress and pulls, yanking the gown over her head and leaving her exposed. “How very beastly of you,” she manages, her breath catching in her throat. His hands are tight around her hips now, pulling, leading her to him. She wants to say something more, to argue, to play one last witty card, but skin is meeting skin, pressing inwards, warm and hard and eager, and all that escapes her when he enters her at last is a moan, long and low and beastly in and of itself. She shudders and sinks down onto him, pressing into the bed with the palms of her hands, her hair falling into her face. “Oh,” she murmurs, her lip catching between her teeth and her eyes fluttering closed. “ _Oh_ …”

The first twist of her hips is slow, adjusting to the feel of him. He hisses, his chest rising and falling sharply; but it’s not enough for him. He shifts beneath her, arching upward, pressing deeper, and draws from Éowyn another cry, sharper this time, higher. He licks his lips again and digs his fingers into her thighs, clinging desperately. “Do you always make your rides so gentle, princess?” he says, his voice hoarse and catching.

She raises her head, lip still between her teeth, and smiles, the sort of slow, dark smile that one might expect from Gríma himself, wickedness in every shadow and curve of her mouth. “Are you anxious to run, my king?” she says. “Well then, we will run.”

The sudden smooth rotation of her hips, rapid and repeating, makes the very bed beneath them shake. Gríma’s grip tightens painfully, and he screams, heedless of who will hear him, heedless of anything but the feel of her. He spits curses to the rafters and clings like his life depends on it, like if he lets go, Éowyn will disappear.

At times he bucks so hard against her that she thinks he means to throw her off; but she stays on, determined, thighs tight around his hips. His eyes are sharper now than she has ever seen them, bright with need and longing. His voice grinds out a thousand endearments, egging her on, pushing her, begging her for more; and she is more than willing to oblige him. She buries her hands in the furs and rides him like the beast he pretends to be until his hands come free of her hips and lace through hers.

She pins his hands beneath hers on the bed and rides the harder, startled when the very friction of their bodies starts to send her spiraling out of control. She has never come like this before, undone atop him at the height of his own pleasure. A thousand words spring to her lips, but all come out as jumbled moans, then piercing screams when her pleasure peaks and breaks and sustains, a wave so intense her fingers clutch and tighten and nearly break her king’s. She grinds against him, hard, willing the pleasure to stay; and beneath her, still inside her, he comes with a strangled gasp, arcing up to meet her. The feeling nearly breaks her again, and she clutches him desperately, pressing skin to skin until neither she nor he can take another second.

Gasping, she sags atop him, pressed along the top of his body, face buried in the crook between his shoulder and his neck. Her fingers are still laced through his, and they stay there, warm and shockingly tender. She can feel the pounding of his heart against her breast, a heavy, intimate beat in strange harmony with hers; and it strikes her very suddenly that there has never been a moment where she has been as vulnerable, as open and tender and unguarded, as she is in this moment with him.

The thought sends icy terror in her blood. She is no fool; this man is dangerous, no matter what he would have her believe of him. This is a man with witchcraft on his tongue and a stolen crown upon his head; a man who bewitched an otherwise steadfast Shieldmaiden and her family, and made a nation kneel. He cannot be trusted. He cannot be allowed to see her at her weakest.

And yet, she finds, she cannot quite seem to make herself move away from him, to break the soft, joined beating of their hearts.

He tightens his grip on her hands, gently, and turns to kiss her throat, a light brush of his lips to her sweating skin. “Sweet warrior,” he murmurs, so softly, touching her hair with all the tenderness of a man desperately in love. “My queen…”

She smiles despite herself against his neck. “My dark stallion.”

He chuckles softly, and presses a kiss to her ear. “I think the stress of the day most certainly pales in comparison to the reward.”

Éowyn thinks of the likely reason for his stress, of court matters and of usurper kings, and suddenly grows cold. She sits up at once, unlacing her hands and clambering off of him. “A queen must wonder if you deserve such a reward,” she says, turning her face away. “What was it, precisely, that kept you so late? You never did tell me.”

He props himself up, looking so wounded that for an instant – just an instant – Éowyn feels a stab of guilt. “I thought the servants would have told you,” he says. “I have asked that you be permitted to join me in governing Rohan, finally, as I have always intended.”

Her breath stops short, and she drops back down onto the bed, hardly daring to believe. “You – want me to rule with you?”

He arches a brow and smiles, the most loving smile she has ever seen from him. “Of course,” he says. “I have seen how idleness has been killing you these many years, and I know you fear for the safety of your kingdom. How could I deny you the right to what you have so longed for – to be of use, to be a legend, to be a good queen and leader to your people?”

For a moment, Éowyn does not dare to believe him. It must be some trick, some lie. Saruman would never permit this. Gríma would be taking an enormous risk to even make such a proposal. But she thinks of the servants and their furtive, nervous glances, and the strange looks her guards and friends of Rohan cast her as they passed her by that day, and in her heart she knows he speaks the truth.

Her smile is bright and warm as the sun when she throws herself back into his arms, daring to hope for the first time in years that perhaps things could change. “Then perhaps you deserve your reward after all,” she says, forgetting he is dangerous, forgetting that he lies.

He smiles against her mouth, stealing kisses just before she means to offer them, taking her hungrily and eagerly into his arms. “Give me an hour, and you may feel free to rain rewards on me again,” he says, his smirk boyish and precious and enough to make her heart overflow.

She bends to kiss him again, and murmurs, “Oh, I intend to. Have I mentioned starlight rides are my second favorite?”


End file.
